Movie Murmur

Over the last few years some of us, in our honorary capacities, have off and on been involved in the selection, script and rough cut evaluation process at Films Division, India's prime organisation that makes documentary films. In this process we have been active witnesses to many a concept being turned into insipid movies. I mainly fear that this is primarily due to the fact that we have a default form of building up a documentary movie imbibed into our blood streams - the one that has a 'god's voice' of a narrator guiding us in a predetermined manner or off late the one that endlessly 'observers' and 'follows' the main characters at times to their death bed. Yet, a few of the documentaries commissioned by Films Division had stood out to me for their sheer brilliance of form, ie... the innovative way in which the content has been narrated. I would mention a few made in the last two-three years that were experiential in nature; and have also bro...

Kundu Saab, as we called Virender Kundu, was on deputation to Films Division from the Haryana state cadre of government civil services. He is a film buff, the indication of it was that every evening he saw a movie in his home theater that had 5.1 speakers, so we were told. After taking charge as the Director General of Films Division, as the post is called now as against the earlier Chief Producer, he quickly realized that the system that Films Division had developed over the years actually put off the spirited independent documentary film maker or kept them out of it's range.   He opened up the organization to people who otherwise would not have entered into it's premises at Peddar Road. Consultation with independent documentary film makers became the norm. One of the major reforms he had undertaken in his tenure was to streamline the online application process and make the process seem transparent. After the applicant submitted his / her proposal on line on to the ...

A edit grab from the film 'Double Life' Didn't I mention earlier that the film laboratory person at Mahim talked about the state of affairs at Films Division? Well, that day he said something else too. Their laboratory often processed and bulk printed the ‘News Magazines’ that were to be shown compulsorily in movie theaters; after Films Division supplied it with the negatives of the films. The laboratory person had then whispered into my ears something to this effect, “They would order let's say X number of prints that were to be kept in X number of cans for a pan India release. Now, who knows what would be inside those X number of cans? Tell me... who knows? "   Well, it seems in retrospect, that whisper that day encapsulated in itself the crux of the matter that has been plaguing the organization over the years. Who knows what would be in those cans? Who knows, what are the Films Division films that were being screened at theaters across the country; an...